Revenge Is A Dish...

Back in August I was challenged to a Celebrity Death Match by Nashh Kadar and we met in battlecruisers which ended up with me losing.

I'm one to hold a grudge, especially good natured competitive ones. In Warhammer 40K days, I was known for my Grudge Matches, where every once in a while I would challenge an old 40K friend to a match of epic proportions with a lot of pride on the line, a no holds barred tilt to the finish (as opposed to friendly games where less competitiveness was the call of the day for our core group). Since your hard earned isk is on the line in an Eve Duel, the competitiveness is implied, and when I lost last time, I knew that someday I'd come back for Revenge. Call me Khan, and this is the story of my wrath.

Lessons Learned

I made some cruical errors in the last duel.

For starters, I assumed I had a shill advantage that would be telling in terms of DPS and tank. Secondly, I figured it would be quick and brutal like a low sec gank so I took a ship designed to overpower him at close range in a short amount of time. Third, I calculated that my ECM drones would give me enough jams to severely disrupt his DPS.

Instead he proved to be more than capable of handling his Drake well, it was a long match where I tried to close with a too-heavily-armoured-rigged Myrmidon that was far too slow for a blaster boat and I ran out of cap, and despite having more ECM drones after I culled most of his, he still got crucial jams that allowed him to scoot out of range when I deactivated my MWD to save capacitor.

The Plan

We agreed to a Destroyer duel because he had not done one before and I didn't want to risk another 100 million ship just yet. In hindsight since there is no Tech 1 missile destroyers I might have an advantage so I offered to change but he kindly declined.

I decided I wanted to fight at range instead of up close. While 7+ blasters sounds like a good idea, Destroyers can't tank worth crap due to lack of slots. (P.S. CCP: give Destroyers more tanking slots, their low CPU/PG will prevent them from becoming too powerful.) So in order to get to my long range and stay there I planned a MWD at the very least. It also led me to look at a Catalyst over a Cormorant as I figured that the range bonus of the latter would not be as vital to me as the speed advantage of the former.

The plan was to get to my optimal range and maintain it, running away if he came towards me, and closing if he ran away. I hoped that my superior hybrid skills would allow me to out-damage him at my optimal, combined with the extra turret and drone over the Cormorant which I suspected he would use.

With rails and MWD, I knew cap was vital. No use having a tank if nothing else is working, right? So small cap booster with 200 sized charges would be more than enough to power everything, and the large cargo bay of the Destroyer class allowed me  stock enough charges to last over 11 minutes with everything running. I made sure I had enough ammo in cargo for over 20 minutes as well.

In the lows I opted for a Damage Control for a bit of cheap tanking, a tracking enhancer to bring my optimal up to my targeting range of 41 km and boost the tracking a bit, and finally an Overdrive Injector to ensure I had speed superiority barring a surprise setup by Nashh.



(Click to Embiggen)

That gave me an estimated DPS of around 100 with Spike Ammo at 41 KM, and a calculated speed of  around 1900 meters/second.

I really really wanted to win.

The Duel

Last night we logged in at the agreed time and met up at Amarr planet 1. We exchanged a charge of ammo in a jet can, warped to planet 2 at the agreed range of 20 km from each other, and the duel was on.

[ 2009.10.14 01:19:00 ] (notify) Warping to Amarr II (Mikeb)
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:45 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 197.3 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:47 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:48 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II hits Lau Wensink (Cormorant), doing 138.2 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:50 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:51 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 178.8 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:52 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:54 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 181.7 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:55 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:57 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II places an excellent hit on Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 241.6 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:58 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:00 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 143.0 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:01 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:03 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 172.4 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:03 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:06 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:06 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 186.5 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:09 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:09 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II hits Lau Wensink (Cormorant), doing 143.5 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:12 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:12 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 253.0 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:15 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:16 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 254.4 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:17 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:19 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 264.3 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:20 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.

BOOM! His ship flew into pieces and I high fived my wife who was on the couch beside me (me somewhat more enthusiastically than her judging by her sigh and rolling eyes).

It was a complete skunk unfortunately, with Nashh unable to land a single salvo on me. A quick look at the Caldari Antimatter charges loaded reveals why: he thought I would come in close like I tried last time with the Myrmidon so he decided on short ranged ammo and tracking disruptors to foil me. But at 41 km against a Destroyer class ship using rails he was not fast enough to escape my tracking despite being disrupted, and his ammo was inadequate for returning fire.

I felt a little bad for the spanking I delivered... then I remembered my poor Mrymidon and the emotion when away. Then I felt like this:


We agreed before the fight that a third duel was called for if I won and we settled on Tech 1 battleships, no ECM, range limit (how about 50 km?) in about a month's time. Now it time to start planning as I expect I won't catch him off guard again :)

Nashh Kadar's Report: